tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357316514436369105.post1692456850049050133..comments2016-11-19T17:17:01.884+00:00Comments on Theoretical Structural Archaeology: 24. Systematic Irregularity: Why almost nothing in the Celtic world was squareGeoff Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01111820035762957610noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357316514436369105.post-4200486350117185472016-04-18T18:53:42.521+01:002016-04-18T18:53:42.521+01:00Thanks for the info; this a very interesting topic...Thanks for the info; this a very interesting topic; I spent several years looking at the setting out of buildings particularly roundhouses; I reached the conclusion that it was not a way forward because we can only see holes in the ground for foundations, whereas the &quot;builder&quot; was concerned with the superstructure, so it is difficult to know what was significant. Irregularity in the plan may be to allow regularity in the super structure, as with the offset ties in a Neolithic longhouse.<br />Sadly, I do not work for a University so my work has been ignored; &quot;systematic irregularity&quot; was first published in 1998; I am aware that other scholars have reached the same conclusions.<br />I have found Roman military structures which &quot;irregular&quot; layouts.<br />Geoff Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01111820035762957610noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357316514436369105.post-582894388947085652016-04-18T12:42:23.701+01:002016-04-18T12:42:23.701+01:00Do you know https://www.academia.edu/1909466/vers_...Do you know https://www.academia.edu/1909466/vers_une_g%C3%A9om%C3%A9trie_des_enclos_quadrangulaires_celtiques<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357316514436369105.post-79444178254747007122009-03-18T13:37:00.000+00:002009-03-18T13:37:00.000+00:00Conceive. Is your use of systematic necessary with...Conceive. Is your use of systematic necessary with irregularity? Possibly aren’t you after cultural, traditional, ritual or…., for instance I am not sure that the four post form of construction would demand symmetrical forks or even those from the base of the crown. Almost any branch will do and paradoxically provide Celtic culture with your Systematic Irregularity from the fact that almost no two forks are exactly same.<BR/>http://www.hikingwithchuck.com/Downloads/OakSapling20070318.JPG<BR/>I think that you can find forks all over the oak tree-from little acorns and all that it must be the gods. Even in a coppice there are rouges and wolfs. I suggest that forks would have much more obvious uses in round houses as well.<BR/><BR/>You seem to be envisioning some theory of opposites, of either ors within a symbolised landscape centred on a circular home of the Celtic mind within a roughly squared enclosures evolved from an earlier Opposite type Neolithic but soon to be overtaken by the Cadastralist and doing so as a history of the tenon joint. How can the tenon be relevant, is the tenon joint made unsymmetrical in one system but not in another. But, like the joints at Stonehenge hidden, beneath a roof made right. Maybe what we are seeing is the evolution of no-mans land. The celts educated in round houses refute Pythagoras (still a common problem with most ground worker setting out foundation), they have a problem with setting right angles-what’s the problem of a few degrees here or there when they have mastered the circle. <BR/><BR/> Sorry I can feel myself going off into that other place (the pub).<BR/><BR/>Looking forward to your series of cantilevers<BR/><BR/>Cut, cut, fill, fillUnitof1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05011381868584183871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357316514436369105.post-71450703960415167792009-03-18T01:44:00.000+00:002009-03-18T01:44:00.000+00:00I assume that the distortion in the plan would be ...I assume that the distortion in the plan would be done in such a way as to have no effect on the structure, and certainly not on the roof. I will be getting on to this, but in terms of the Orsett Post structure illustrated above, the first set of timbers would be a pair running up and down in terms of the plan, this would support a cantilevered base, [thus avoiding the distortion].<BR/> <BR/>Granaries are remarkably similar the world over, and in Britain the basic form remains the same into the medieval period, though the posts are replaced by shaped ‘saddle’ stones.<BR/><BR/>I have hundreds of straight coppiced &amp; standard oaks (quercus petraea), growing in woodland on my Farm, as most farms and estates would have had in the past, but I would have to go look for one with a symmetrical fork at the base of the crown.<BR/><BR/>I can think of no conceivable reason why forked sticks would have been used in post and lintel architecture; the four–poster at Orsett was built in the 1st century bce, at the end of a tradition already 5000 or 6000 years old in Northern Europe.Geoff Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01111820035762957610noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357316514436369105.post-16504785269550350722009-03-17T15:10:00.000+00:002009-03-17T15:10:00.000+00:00I apologise at the outset in presuming that you im...I apologise at the outset in presuming that you imagine that the misaligned four posters that you have presented in the blog, attach to the rest of the superstructure through mortise/tenon joints –and that you are suggesting that the celts use the tenon joints but deliberately misalign the wall plate and so carry on the misalignment into the roof shape. Where as I am suggesting if the celts were fixated with having a forked stick, they would have to accept that you probably wont find them all attached to straight bits and they would make up for it by playing around with the post hole positions but still be able to create a reasonably proportioned wall plate and roof/platform structure –they might even throw in a few stake hole forks as well.. Type in African granary into google images and see where it takes you. Surely this is why the four posters were interoperated as granaries…… <BR/><BR/>Not sure about your use of-in reality it is much easier to find lots of straight bits of wood-I think that you might have to create a very self assured silviculture with 50 to a hundred year cropping regimes first. Is there a possibility that forked sticks can for the same height and strength be produced from younger wood. Quite often here I see what are little more than stake sized forked sticks being used to hold substantial wall and tie beams. Also after the easy bit of finding the wood there is not much left to do to a forked stick…<BR/><BR/>Cut, cut, fill, fill.Unitof1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05011381868584183871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357316514436369105.post-22845561515411832542009-03-17T13:10:00.000+00:002009-03-17T13:10:00.000+00:00Thanks for the comment. On the subject of forked ...Thanks for the comment. <BR/>On the subject of forked sticks; if your building requires only 2 major posts it is conceivable you might use one, however, in reality it is much easier to find lots of straight bits of wood of the required length, than to find straight bits with a appropriate fork in the desired position. Posts by and large connect to more than one piece of timber in the superstructure to ensure rigidity in all directions. Mortise and tenon joints allow more than one piece of wood to be joined to the head of post.Geoff Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01111820035762957610noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357316514436369105.post-38643847802863524032009-03-17T11:34:00.000+00:002009-03-17T11:34:00.000+00:00Hello Buildings Man, Unitof1 here, banished of BAJ...Hello Buildings Man, Unitof1 here, banished of BAJR, out looking for distractions from the report that I should be writing-currently a very grotty buildings survey. <BR/>I have noticed certain traits of yours-all justifiable devices: reaction to the Out of Africa paradigm in your blog which is unfortunate as I am a seventh generation expat currently based in Nigeria, the disregard of string, love of the Triatholon joint and in this theme the resort to dipping toe in ritual pond. <BR/><BR/>And was thinking- what about the use of forked sticks for your four posters. Seems to me that in amongst the mud huts I have seen the device of the forked stick to support the wall plate often results in a less than satisfactory post profile standard and so a disarray of posthole alignment to accommodate the subsequent cunning balancing acts. Indeed it is my contention that such is the mystic reverence for the fork of the forked stick, is it its ridged joint strength that draws the eye, that there is an almost perverse disregard for the post bit. This might be unfair but merely the result of giving in to the probability of matching forks in your forestry arrangements. <BR/><BR/>Not sure of your use of the myth of the Muslim perfection, Its hard to see where it would end.<BR/><BR/>Cut, cut, fill, fill.Unitof1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05011381868584183871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357316514436369105.post-57129731855693749792009-03-07T13:49:00.000+00:002009-03-07T13:49:00.000+00:00Good post, I stumbled it...Good post, I stumbled it...Amolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00304769807775917440noreply@blogger.com